Useful Polemics

Published:EkhoNo. 1, June 22, 1906.

      Published according to theEkhotext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1965,

      Moscow,Volume 11,

      pages40-42.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Morethan half of the Goremykin government’s long communication on
“measures for improving the conditions of life of the peasantry” is
devoted to polemics against the views of the peasants and the talk
(“rumours”, as the Goremykins contemptuously call it) that is going
on among the people. These polemics are extremely useful. The Goremykin
government is debating with the “Russian peasantry”. It declares
that the views the peasants hold are “mistaken”, and tries to prove
to them that their demands and plans are “primarily opposed to the
interests of the peasants themselves

Nowit is exceedingly praiseworthy, gentlemen of the Goremykin government, that
you should try the art of gentle persuasion! You should have tried this long
ago. It really would have been far better had you dealt with the peasants by
argument rather than by means of the birch, the knout, bullets and rifle
butts. Almost all newspapers would publish a government communication. The
village priests, the Zemstvo officials, the rural district elders and the police
officials would read it to the peasants. The peasants would ponder over it. They
would be taught sense by the government, how to understand their real
interests. And after thinking it over, and having been taught something by the
government, they would decide by a majority vote who was right. How nice it
would be if this were so! But how atrocious it is when, with one hand, the
Goremykins and their myrmidons flog, torture and murder the peasants, and with
the other, they run down their throats “communications” to teach
them to understand their own interests! Peasant newspapers are being suppressed;
peasant delegates and members of the Peasant Union[1]are languishing in jail,
or inSiberia; the villages are inundated with troops, as if they were enemy
territory—and the Goremykin government hands the flogged and tortured
peasants a communication to the effect that they are being flogged and tortured
for their own good!

Thisis a useful communication! It will have a splendid effect on the
peasants. The government has undertaken a little of the work of the Trudovik, or
Peasant, Group in the Duma. This Group ought to appeal to the people, to tell
them about the demands the peasant deputies in the Duma are making for land for
the peasants, and what the government says in answer to these demands. The
Trudovik Group has not yet done this. The government has come to its aid. Our
government is so clever! It has itself published a communication to the whole
people and has told them what the peasants demand.

Evenin the most out-of-the-way villages, even in villages where they have never
heard about the Peasant Union and about the peasant deputies in the Duma (if
there are such villages—probably there are; ours is such a wild country),
even there, the local priest, or village elder, will read the government’s
communication. The peasants will gather round, listen quietly, and then
disperse. And afterwards they will gather again, with no officials present, and
begin to talk. They will discuss the government’s assurance that it and the
bureaucrats are not protecting the interests of the landlords. They will chuckle
and say:

“Oh no, they wouldn’t dream of such a thing!” They will discuss
the statement that voluntary sale of the land by the landlords, particularly if
it is done through the medium of the government officials, will be far more
advantageous to the peasants than compulsory alienation (perhaps even without
redemption payment). They will chuckle and say: “What fools we have been
not to have realised up to now that it is far better for us to obey the
landlords and the bureaucrats than to decide all matters for ourselves.”

Butperhaps the peasants will not only chuckle? Perhaps they will reflect over
something else, and not only with laughter, but with rage? Perhaps they will
decide for themselves not only where truth lies, but how to attain it?...

Ourgovernment is so clever!

Incidentally,Mr. Muromtsev, the Cadet Chairman of the State Duma, tells us not
      to use the word: government. It is wrong, if you please. The Duma, too, is
      part of the government. We must say: the Cabinet. Then we shall conclude
      just like “gentlemen” do: the Duma is the legislature, and the
      Cabinet the executive; the Duma is part of the government.

KindMr. Muromtsev! Kind Cadets! They have so painstakingly studied the German
books on state law that they know them by heart. They know the business better
than Goremykin, who in his communicationdoes not say a word about the
Duma, but refers all the time to thegovernment. Who is right,
Goremykin or Muromtsev? What should we say:

Cabinet or Government?

Goremykinis right. His refinement ... humph! humph!

his subtle mind ... caused him inadvertently to speak the truth. The Muromtsevs,
being professors and pundits, utter conventional lies.

Thepeasants will learn something from Goremykin, not from Muromtsev. They will
want to settle accounts with the government, not with the Cabinet. And they will
be right.

[1]TheAll-Russian Peasant Union—a
revolutionary-democratic organisation which arose in 1905. It demanded political
liberty and the immediate convocation of a constituent assembly; it supported
the tactics of boycotting the First State Duma. The agrarian programme of the
Union included demands for the abolition of private ownership of the land and
for the transfer of monastery, church, crown and state lands to the peasants
without redemption payments. The Union was half-hearted and wavering in its
policy. While demanding the abolition of landlord ownership o land, it agreed to
partial compensation of the landlords. From the very beginning of its activities
the Peasant Union was subjected to police persecution. The Union ceased to
exist by 1907.